Fine Art

The Stephen Jenn Collection: Select Works by John Kirby

28 July 2025

Charlotte Riordan

We are delighted to present ‘The Stephen Jenn Collection: Part I’ as part of the forthcoming Contemporary Art auction on 13 August 2025, the first of a two-part selection of works by the intriguing and critically regarded artist John Kirby.

John Kirby was a British painter whose work explored identity, gender, and psychological vulnerability through quietly arresting figurative compositions. Raised in a working-class Irish Catholic family in Liverpool, his early experiences informed a practice marked by ambiguity and emotional intensity, concerned with the implicit as opposed to the explicit.

Contemporary Art

Explore the Wednesday 13 August auction.

JOHN KIRBY (BRITISH 1949-2025)

STRAPPY DRESS - 1981

Signed and dated 1981 lower left, oil on canvas

77cm x 61.5cm (30.25in x 24in), unframed

£3,000 - £5,000 + fees

His subjects, often solitary figures in sparse, flattened interiors, embody a sense of detachment. Gender is frequently fluid or ambiguous; expressions remain unreadable, gazes averted. Kirby’s paintings are frequently punctuated by symbolic elements such as crowns, costumes, and party hats that gesture toward performance and concealment. The formal restraint of his imagery belies its emotional and psychological depth, inviting prolonged contemplation rather than immediate interpretation.

A recurring character, the bald man, appears throughout his work as both personal cipher and universal figure. This imagery was, as we shall see, inspired by Stephen Jenn, to whom this collection of works belonged prior to his early death in 2012.

JOHN KIRBY (BRITISH 1949-2025)

FORTY - 1990

Signed, inscribed with title and dated ‘Mar. ‘90’ to stretcher verso, dedicated ‘For Stephen Jenn’ verso, oil on canvas

34cm x 24cm (13.25in x 9.5in)

£2,000 - £3,000 + fees

Jenn met Kirby while the artist was still working as a probation officer in the 1980s. The pair went on to enjoy a ten-year relationship, spanning the formative years of Kirby’s artistic training and burgeoning success. Jenn - a successful RADA-trained theatre actor - suffered with alopecia, becoming completely and permanently bald in his early teens. More than a partner, Jenn became muse to Kirby who repeatedly and obsessively sketched and painted him throughout their relationship. The image of Jenn became the key motif in Kirby’s visual lexicon.

In turn, Jenn provided Kirby with support and encouragement, and the works offered in this two-part collection represent the legacy of this significant chapter of their lives. Emerging now from this highly personal context, in the year of Kirby’s death at the age of seventy six, the works offered here for sale lend clarity to the subtexts that permeate Kirby’s work.

JOHN KIRBY (BRITISH 1949-2025)

MAN WITH PEARL NECKLACE

Oil on canvas

30cm x 24cm (12in x 9.5in)

£2,000 - £3,000 + fees

Kirby studied at Central Saint Martins and the Royal College of Art after earlier work as a social worker and time spent at a children’s home in Calcutta. He exhibited widely in the UK and internationally and was represented for many years by Flowers Gallery. Kirby’s reputation in the 1990s got a significant boost when Madonna bought one of his paintings, ‘Family Ties’. One of his larger canvases appeared in the film “The Birdcage” - the U.S. remake of the original French “Cage aux Folles", starring the late, great Robin Williams. His work is held in public collections including Tate and the Victoria and Albert Museum. In 2012, he was the subject of a major retrospective at the Walker Art Gallery in his home city of Liverpool.

About the Author

ABOUT THE AUTHOR